Monday, August 10, 2015

Beauty through the Cascades

Monday, August 10   Day 9   Sandy to Detroit, OR   89 miles with 5700' of climbing

This was a typical view today as we rode next to several rivers and lakes on a Scenic Oregon Byway. This photo of the Santium River was about five miles from our destination in Detroit. I mentioned lakes, but further down in this posting you can see what Detroit's lake looks like during their state's serious drought.

If you remember the view out our room window at the Timberlake Lodge at Mt Hood (in yesterday's blog posting), Bob and I had to laugh at the contrast to last night's room window view, which we noticed only this morning:
....the satellite dishes on a rooftop!

Before we departed this morning, we got this shot of us wearing the same jersey. Janae and Conrad live in Chicago, where Lagunitas now brews its beer in addition to its original plant in Petaluma, CA. When they wore their jerseys several days ago, I let them know I had one too and we decided to all wear them today.
As this photo shows, we were back riding in the mountains today. I did not take any pictures during the first15 miles or so while approaching the mountains, but here we achieved the summit of a climb and ventured deeper into the Cascades. By the time I put away my camera to continue down this hill, those guys were long gone and I never saw them again until the rest stop.
This lake, the North Fork Reservoir, was next to our road for many miles, and then the river flowing into it, the Clackamas River, was next to us for dozens of miles after that. We went over it about 6 times farther up the hill, always on green metal bridges that looked the same. It truly was a gorgeous route today.
Here's a scenic bend in the road. That's still the Clackamas River.
This is still the same river, but farther upstream at our Mile 28 where we had our first rest stop. By the way, this road is closed in winter. It's a scenic byway!
My pose for the camera at the rest stop, after I removed the T-shirt I had stuffed in my shorts that morning to try to ease the pain of sitting on my saddle sore. It didn't really work, and actually felt much better after removing such a huge pad down there.
The byway had this sign posted many times, which is interesting. That sign could, and should, be posted on every road (other than freeways) in the country! The law in every state says that bikes, which are vehicles, may use the full lane if necessary. But this is the only time I've seen a sign like this, and I especially like the photo because two from our group are illustrating it. (Thanks to Janae for this photo.)
Two more photos to show just how pretty our bike ride was today.
Then we reached Detroit. The "congested" sign struck me as funny at first, but from what I witnessed, the cars turning right into the village and those departing back onto the highway did indeed cause lots of congestion right here. So, what makes Detroit special? Its popular Detroit Lake, the most visited lake in Oregon!
This is the lake's marina as of right now. Sitting on the sand. The lake is almost empty due to lack of snowfall runoff.
I stole this picture of the lake from the Internet, with Mt Jefferson behind. It's hard to believe this is now nearly empty. It IS empty where we are, farthest from the dam.

After I first arrived at about 2:30, I went to the grocery store for some chocolate milk and a milkshake. On the way, I saw a mother bird (who can identify the kind?) feeding her chicks:
This nest was in the roof eave of Conner's BBQ, where many of us ate our dinner later.
Bob and I relaxed for a while outside our room. I enjoyed one of my beers, which the staff keeps on ice for us who have bought them. About half of us had to walk or ride back about 200 yds from the trailers to a second motel, since no single motel could handle all of us. Tomorrow morning, we'll have to walk down there for our breakfast.
This was the view from where Bob and I were relaxing on our deck. If the lake had been at capacity, then the rocky cliff you see to the left and behind the Detroit Lakes Marina building would be water -- right up to the trees.

As I am now finishing this blog, it has begun raining. We will just hope it will be dry again tomorrow morning! Tomorrow to Bend is a long and hard day -- 117 miles with 7900' of climbing. I hope I make it in okay, because I am scheduled to meet with two friends in Bend. Jeff Eorio, who was on Bike Tour 2 of Skyline Dr/Blue Ridge Parkway, will visit and we'll enjoy some good Bend beer at 5:00. At 6:30, I'm having dinner with Dan Jones, who was a good friend in high school.

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